In California: A Place for Curtain Calls

Save for the celluloid immortality enjoyed by a few of the residents
here, they are all, of course, as defenseless against decline as any
other aged flesh and mind: the tolerance is gone for noise, harsh
light, the unexpected; a sidewalk curb is no more easily managed than
an escarpment. But it is different in here. There isn't, for example,
the palpable sadness that is so striking in other institutions where
people are growing very old. It isn't happy all the time, exactly, but
neither is the air so thick with loneliness, to say...